1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote monitoring system comprising a security device for acquiring information indicating occurrence of an abnormality and addressing the abnormality in the event the information is not successfully acquired by a user at a terminal device to which the information is sent by transmission means and to a method using such a remote monitoring system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a system allowing communication between a monitoring device and individual terminal devices has been widely employed. Whether or not information is successfully received by a recipient depends on whether a terminal device user as an information recipient has confirmed reception of the information and therefore such communication with the terminal device is one way communication. In such a system, secure transmission of information from the monitoring device is not guaranteed. To prevent such a problematic situation, a prior art technique disclosed in Patent document 1 has been proposed. A system according to the prior art technique comprises a monitoring device for causing monitoring equipments to detect an abnormality and collecting information indicative of the abnormality, transmission means for sending the information collected by the monitoring device via a transmission line such as the Internet in the form of an email to a particular terminal device having a specific email address, reception means for receiving a return email from said terminal device, processing means for processing information contained in the email received, and means for continuing to send said email until said monitoring device receives an acknowledgement to said email from said terminal device.
Further, as another conventional technique, a system disclosed in Patent document 2 has been proposed. The system is a home health care system for monitoring the activities of individuals such as an elderly person living alone within their homes, in which a home care system provided in a house of a person to be cared determines whether the person has an abnormality. Information indicative of the abnormality is sent to a server in a centralized communications center and then sent from the server to service personnel such as a home helper. The service personnel who received the information checks by telephone if the person needing care is in good/poor health or alternatively visits a person's home and checks out the person's state of health. However, there is a far more problematic situation in which the information indicative of the abnormality is sent in one way direction from the server to the service personnel and therefore whether or not the service personnel has successfully received the information and checked out the person's state of health cannot be identified. In order to solve such a problem, the system is configured so that the service personnel reports to a processing unit that he/she has successfully received the information and checked out the person's state of health, and when the personnel does not report for a predetermined time period, the system automatically urges the personnel to report. More specifically, the home health care system detects an abnormality in the person needing care and sends information indicating the abnormality and including a subject code to the processing unit via a communication network. The processing unit identifies a service personnel based on the subject code and sends the information indicating the abnormality to the personnel by cellular phone, etc. The service personnel provides treatment to the person needing care based on the received information indicating the abnormality and sends a result of the treatment to the processing unit. Then, when the processing unit does not receive the result of the treatment after the predetermined time period has passed, the unit automatically places a call to the personnel's phone and urges the personnel to report the result. In a case where the information indicating the abnormality is not successfully received by the personnel, a backup center operating 24 hours a day eventually provides treatment to the person needing care.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-78904 (paragraphs [0008], [0010], [0020])
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-178383 (paragraphs [0016] to [0019], [0026] to [0037])
However, the conventional techniques disclosed in the above Patent document 1 and Patent document 2 have the following problems. That is, when information indicating occurrence of an abnormality is not successfully received by the terminal device, the information is repeatedly sent to the terminal device and if the information is not eventually received by the terminal device, the abnormality is left untreated or noticed too late. Naturally, as above described with reference to the conventional technique disclosed in Patent document 2, it is also contemplated that the backup center operating 24 hours a day is provided. However, provision and management of such a backup center requires a large sized-piece of apparatus and a large space for the apparatus, and the involvement of administrators, increasing investment cost and making the approach to providing the backup center unpractical.
In consideration of the abovementioned problems found in the conventional techniques, the invention provides a remote monitoring system which has a simplified configuration and is capable of remotely monitoring the current state of a person needing care and detecting an abnormality in the person's behavior and then addressing the abnormality. The invention further provides a method using the remote monitoring system.